<p>255 years ago, the British Museum in London was opened.</p>

London - The famous Rosetta Stone, which played a key role in deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, and one of the "walking" statues from Easter Island are proudly displayed at the British Museum in London, which opened 255 years ago on January 15, 1759. Over its existence, the number of visitors has grown from 5,000 annually to more than five million, making it one of the most visited museums in the world. With seven million objects in its collections, the British Museum is also one of the largest museums globally.
    In addition to the permanent collections, visitors to the British Museum can enjoy around 20 temporary thematic exhibitions each year, some of which, unlike the permanent exhibitions, require an admission fee. The greatest visitor success in the museum's history was in 1972 with the exhibition of the treasures of Tutankhamun; the artifacts from the tomb of the young Egyptian pharaoh, discovered in 1922 by British archaeologist Howard Carter, were viewed by 1.694 million people in London.
    Over 850,000 visitors came to the British Museum from September 2007 to April 2008 to admire a part of the terracotta army of the first Chinese emperor, which China lent abroad for the first time in history.

photo: Jan Kratochvíl, 2013